They are: . Time consuming, due to traditional mailing system ... web-based budgeting automation system for public construction projects can be integrated into ...
Kuwait J. Sci. Eng. 38
(1B) pp. 37-53, 2011
An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait KHALED A. ALRASHEED* AND HAYA B. ALBADER** *
Civil Engineering Department, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait Corresponding author ** Civil Engineering Department, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait
ABSTRACT This research presents a conceptual model of a web-based budgeting approach for public construction projects in the State of Kuwait. The proposed system automates the current manual budgeting procedures and facilitates information exchange between dierent departments within the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and between the MOF and other related governmental agencies. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) was used to develop the conceptual model based on the functional requirements of the MOF manual's procedures. The XML is among the latest web-based technologies that facilitate sharing of structured data across dierent information systems, including the Internet. The ease of use of this system, as demonstrated in the XML prototype implementation, should further encourage public entities in Kuwait to adopt WWW technologies on a wider scale, which falls in line with the country's drive toward egovernment. Keywords: XML; budgeting; construction projects; e-government. BUDGETING CYCLE IN KUWAIT
The public budgeting process in the state of Kuwait begins with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) developing what is known as the ®ve-year master plan for the whole country. The master plan is developed around the overall objectives of Kuwait's futuristic long-term urban policies, which include the new construction projects requested by all public entities. Each governmental agency submits its annual budget proposal of its envisioned projects to the Ministry of Finance (Fig. 1). The submittals are hand-written hard copies directed to the Budgeting Department at the MOF for approval and processing. All requests of governmental agencies for new construction projects are ®lled out by hand on ocial forms belonging to the MOF. For processing to take place, the request form should include the following information about the project: 1. title, 2. general objectives, 3. total estimated cost, 4. estimated duration, and 5. annual budget based on total estimated cost. The ®lled and
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Khaled A. Alrasheed and Haya B. Albader
submitted request forms are reviewed by the Higher Council of Planning at the MOF and are prioritized, in terms of budgeting, according to the country's development policies. Procedures for Requesting New Public Construction Project The Government organization requesting the project 1. Prepare the five-year plan and list the new projects needed to fulfill the growth 2. Prepare preliminary feasibility study for the new projects 3. Fill the new project request form issued by development projects sector (DPS) in MOF 4. Take the necessary approvals from Municipality Site availability and suitability
PAAFR Site suitability
M. of Oil
EPA
Site suitability
Assess effect on the environment
M. of Water & Elec.
M.of Communication
MPW
Provides water and electricity services
For communication services
Connectivity to roads & sanitary networks
5. Send the form back to DPS in MOF before the first of September.
6. DPS Study new projects in terms of its priority in state's development plan, and available resources.
7. DPS Send the 4th chapter of Draft Budget to the Public Budget Sector (PBS) also in MOF not later than 30/9. 8. PBS sends it to council of ministries (COM) for study and approval.
9. COM send the draft budget to national assembly for discussion and approval no later than 31/1.
10. The Approved Budget is send back to COM and the budget law is issued and signed by His Highness the Emir of the country.
Fig. 1. General Procedure for requesting budgets for public construction projects
(Alkanderi, 2007; Kamal, 2007; Mahmod, 2007; Mujahed, 2007).
An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait
TECHNOLOGY BACKGROUND
39
The worldwide spread of internet technologies has created a global informationsharing environment that allows for an extraordinary level of information services. Nevertheless, the reality of the present situation "is that due to the lack of common data de®nitions and the non-heterogeneity in database platforms, the ability of systems and individuals to freely exchange data is severely limited" (Bryan et al., 2002). To overcome these limitations, The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) supported the development of new standards, such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), Extensible Style Sheet Language (XSL) and XML schema de®nition (XSD) (Boritz & Won, 2005). The XML and databases represent the core of the function of a web-enabled Enterprise Information System (EIS); in particular, on an enterprise information integration (EII) and enterprise application integration (EAI) platform (JiaLang & Jing Yu, 2005). XML separates data from the presentation of that data and allows for user-de®ned data tags (Harold, 2004). XML is an enhanced tool for developing and managing e-commerce procedures, and has the potential to achieve greater consistency by facilitating the sharing of structured data across dierent information systems, including the Internet. In the US, private industry groups of cooperative organizations were successful in establishing an agreed-upon standard ontology to conduct transactions over the Internet; for example, Nabisco Foods, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, and retailers Kmart and Wal-Mart ( 2001). At the public level, the US federal government is broadly embracing XML as the open standard for exchanging information among disparate federal computer systems, and between the government and corporations (Anthes, 2002). The objective is to simplify government record keeping and reduce waste, fraud and abuse resulting from poor records management practices. In construction, XML technologies are being used to develop web-based systems to improve the management of the exchanged information (Ma Zhiliang et al., 2004). In addition, attempts have been made to deploy XML technologies to re-engineer web-based decision support processes concerning the trade-o between risks and pro®ts, i.e., the procurement process of sub-contractors (Tserng & Lin, 2002). In other research, the capabilities of XML were demonstrated in developing a conceptual intelligent system for the search of relevant information, extraction of useful data from original documents, reorganization of information according to tasks and users, and the display of an integrated web page (Swee-Lean & Nga-Na, 2004). In some countries, such as China, XML applications were found useful in promoting the development of E-commerce in the construction industry (Yaowu Wang et al., 2007). Despite XML's worldwide successes as an eective tool for developing and
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Khaled A. Alrasheed and Haya B. Albader
managing e-commerce procedures (mainly due its ability to interconnect existing, heterogeneous information systems and repositories), there is little evidence of its application in either the public or private sectors in Kuwait. The hoped-for outcome of this research is to further enhance the government's drive toward adopting XML and other advanced technologies in its procedures. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
The budgeting processes in Kuwait involve information exchange between dierent governmental entities, and between government and non-governmental entities. The current practices of budgeting are manual and paper-based, and therefore have the several drawbacks. They are: . Time consuming, due to traditional mailing system . Eort consuming, due to data re-entry . Error-ridden, due to manual data entry . Dicult to manage, because searches are done manually In doing this research, XML was deployed to automate the governmental budgeting processes of public construction projects. The focus was on developing an information exchange infrastructure where standardized XML schemas were created to ®t the needs of the budgeting system. The outcomes of this deployment in our research process were: 1 - A web-based automated conceptual model for information exchange between remote entities, and 2 - An example of an XML schema for the "Basic Information" section of the current Request Form for public construction projects. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research started with a thorough literature review of similar work, and of the basics of the XML technologies. The rest of the research methodology included the following: 1 - An understanding of the current budgeting processes at the MOF, which included: . Collecting information on current procedures . Conducting visits and interviews with concerned working personnel 2 - Identifying system requirements based on background information, and: . Developing the Communication Model
An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait
41
Developing a Data Flow Model . De®ning the needed reports and access levels 3 - Developing the XML schema to: . Specify the data ®elds for data exchange . Create an XML document for a test project . Create the matching XML schema 4 - Developing a Web-based budgeting system Prototype using Microsoft FrontPage. .
MODEL DEVELOPMENT
In addressing the requirements of the project, the underlining architecture adhered to the following design principles: 1 - Module-Based Design. Allowing the components of the designed system to be used by future systems requiring the same service (Bryan et al., 2002). 2 - Interdependency. Allowing compatibility with dierent systems and platforms, creating a universal way for both formatting and presenting data (Bryan et al., 2002; Boritz & Won, 2005). 3 - Scalability. Allowing for modi®cations and the possible expansion of future functionality, including the ease of integration with future systems that form the E-government infrastructure (Bryan et al., 2002). 4 - Security. Oering a range of security standards such as those of Boritz & Won (2005): . XML Encryption: Meeting the Con®dentiality requirements. . XML Signature: Meeting the Integrity requirements. . Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML): Allowing exchange of authentication, authorization, and pro®le information. PROPOSED CONCEPTUAL MODEL
An XML web-based system was developed for managing data and information exchange in public projects budgeting. The system modeled the process of initiating a new construction public project among related governmental agencies (Fig. 2). The developed XML model adopts the three-tier architecture widely applied as the developing system framework for web applications (Tserng & Lin, 2002). The three-tier architecture imposes a separation between the following three parts (Fig. 3).
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Khaled A. Alrasheed and Haya B. Albader
1 - Client Tier or user interface 2 - Middle Tier or business logic 3 - Information Tier
Fig. 2. Conceptual Model for requesting new public project.
Fig. 3. Three-Tier Model Architecture.
An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait
43
XML schema development
The schema was developed using Altova XML-Spy 2008 software. The actual paper form was transformed into 15 XML schema ®les as follows: a - End User Part (the governmental agency requesting the project): 1 - Project basic information 2 - Project justi®cation and feasibility 3 - Project components 4 - Utilization capacity of the project 5 - Expected cost and ®nance resources 6 - Operating and maintenance costs b - Ministry of Public Works (MPW)-The governmental organization responsible for constructing the project: 1 - Estimated Cost 2 - Project Schedule c - Related governmental agencies responsible for providing the required approvals: 1 - Kuwait Municipality (KM) 2 - Ministry of Public Works (MPW) 3 - Ministry of Energy (Electricity and Water) (MEW) 4 - Ministry of Energy (Oil) (MOO) 5 - The Ministry of Communications (MOC) 6 - Environment Public Authority (EPA) 7 - Public Authority for Agriculture and Fish Resources (PAAFR) Each of the 15 schemas contains a mandatory part that encloses the transaction transmission data (Fig. 4). KBAS interface model
To broaden the spectrum of the XML applications at the public level, the proposed web-based budgeting automation system for public construction projects can be integrated into a wider model of an overall Budget Allocating System for the State of Kuwait. A proposed title for such a broad system would be Kuwait Budget Allocation System (KBAS). It would automate the entire public budgeting processes for the State of Kuwait, and allow for information exchange between all public agencies related to public budgeting. Figure 5 illustrates KBAS, as a web site map, along with the budgeting process for public construction projects.
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Khaled A. Alrasheed and Haya B. Albader
Fig. 4. Transmission Information Schema Architecture.
Fig. 5. KBAS Website Map.
An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait
45
Conceptual model for web-based public budgeting illustration
The XML conceptual model for public project budgeting is based on a two-way, request- and-approve, interaction process. At one end is the public end-user(s) requesting the budget, i.e. the Ministry of Public Health (MPH) or the agency in charge of executing the project, i.e. Ministry of Public Works (MPW), and at the other end are the governmental agencies responsible for reviewing and approving the requested project(s). The web-based interface process of the end user, i.e. MPH, is modeled as in Figure 6, whereas a similar interface process of the related governmental agencies responsible for providing needed approvals is modeled in Figure 7.
Fig. 6. End-User and MPW Interface Process.
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Khaled A. Alrasheed and Haya B. Albader
Fig. 7. Required Approvals Interface Process.
As illustrated in Figure 6, the assigned employee from the governmental agency requesting the project (End User) logs into the KBAS system. The System then contacts the database to retrieve the end-user's information and accessibility rights. A customized page is created for every user depending on his/her identity. As shown in Figure 8, the system at the beginning of the ®scal year obtains the new projects information from Kuwait's 5-year development plan database, and displays the projects listed in the development plan currently being executed by the government. Later, it gets its information from KBAS projects database. The budget table in Figure 8 displays the project number assigned automatically by the system. In addition, it displays the project title, total cost,
An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait
47
and the requested budget for the next ®scal year. It also gives the option for modifying anexisting project or creating a new one. Clicking Modify or Create buttons will open the requesting new project menu which include links to the six End User XML schemas discussed before. The user can choose to modify: 1. Project basic information, 2. Project Justi®cation and feasibility, 3. Project components, 4. Utilization capacity of the project, 5. Expected Cost and Finance resources, or 6. Operating and maintenance costs.
Fig. 8. New Construction Project Budget Table.
For example, if the user chooses to modify the project's expected cost, the information is loaded from the KBAS project database into the designated XML schema which will be converted into a displayable HTML ®le using XSLT technology. The new HTML ®le can have new values extracted from the original XML document, such as a summation of certain values or percentage calculations. Since the user in this scenario represents the governmental agency requesting the project, the user can only modify some parts of the form. As for the rest of the form, the user can only view the information entered by the responsible party from other agencies (Fig. 9 a and b). Also, the user can contact or send a reminder to the responsible agency's representative to follow up on the project and complete the missing information. Moreover, the user can modify the information, reset the modi®cations, and download the corresponding XML document. In the future this system can be integrated with the End User IT Infrastructure so the data can automatically ¯ow between the
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Khaled A. Alrasheed and Haya B. Albader
two systems; this demonstrates the power of XML technology. When the enduser's representative views the required approvals section, the screen shown in Fig. 10 will be displayed, consisting of a table listing all required approvals and their status with the option to contact the related agency or send a reminder.
Fig. 9 a. Project Estimated Cost & Schedule as Seen by the End User.
Fig. 9 b. Project estimated cost as seen by MPW representative (executer).
An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait
49
Fig. 10. Governmental Agencies Required Approvals.
In Figure 7, the user is representing the governmental agencies responsible for providing the needed approvals for the new construction projects, i.e. Kuwait Municipality (KM). The appointed user will view a list of all new projects and their basic information (Fig. 11). The user can view the project information and only modify his agency's approval section of the form.
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Khaled A. Alrasheed and Haya B. Albader
Fig. 11. Kuwait Municipality (KM) Interface Page.
CONCLUSION
The XML was used to develop a conceptual model of a web-based budgeting system for public construction projects in the State of Kuwait. The proposed system automates the current manual budgeting procedures and facilitates the information exchange within the Ministry of Finance, and with other related governmental agencies. Such a system would overcome many of the drawbacks of current budgeting procedures, as data and information will be managed with less time and eort, and higher accuracy and eciency. As illustrated in the KBAS prototype implementation, the proposed system can be expanded and integrated with other governmental systems to form the foundation of the digital government in Kuwait. Such an accomplishment can lead to a wider cooperation in the area of e-government applications not only at the local level but also at the regional level, i.e., the Gulf countries. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge the ®nancial support of Kuwait University Research Administration Grant # EV01/08.
An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS:
COM : Council of Ministries. DPS : Development Projects Sector at Ministry of Finance EAI : Enterprise Application Integration EII : Enterprise Information Integration EIS : Enterprise Information System EPA : Environment Public Authority KBAS : Kuwait Budget Allocation System KM : Kuwait Municipality MEW : Ministry of Energy (Electricity and Water) MOC : Ministry of Communications MOE : Ministry of Education MOF : Ministry of Finance MOF-I T: Information Technology Department at Ministry of Finance MOI : Ministry of Information MOO : Ministry of Energy (Oil) MPH : Ministry of Public Health MPW : Ministry of Public Works PAAFR : Public Authority for Agriculture and Fish Resources PBS : Public Budget Sector at Ministry of Finance SAML: Security Assertion Markup Language W3C : World Wide Web Consortium XML : The Extensible Markup Language XSD : XML Schema De®nition XSL-T: Extensible Style Sheet Language Transformations REFERENCES
Alkanderi, M. 2007. Kuwait Municipality, Personal interview, 23 Sept. Anthes, G. 2002. XML goes to Washington. Computer World; Oct 7, ABI/INFORM Global,
p. 43.
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Boritz, J. & Won, G.N. 2005. Security in XML-based ®nancial reporting services on the Internet. Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 24(1): 11-35. Bryan, G., Curry, J., McGregor, C., Holdsworth, D. & Sharply, R. 2002. Using XML to Facilitate
Information Management across Multiple Local Government Agencies. 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'02), 4hicss: 119. Collaborative Planning , 2001 . Forecasting and Replenishment Committee, . Harold, E. 2004. XML 1.1 Bible. Wiley. Jia-Lang, S. & Jing, Y. 2005. A requirements-driven workload model for XML benchmarks. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 105(8): 1096-1114. Kamal, M. 2007. Ministry of Planning, Personal Interview, 4 Nov. Ma, Z., Li, H., Shen, Q.P. & Yang J. 2004. Using XML to support information exchange in construction projects. Automation in Construction, 13(5): 629-637. Mahmod, S. 2007. Kuwait Municipality, Personal interview, 23 Sept. Microsoft website 2008. XML: Enabling Next-Generation Web Applications. [available online from :http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/itsolutions/ intranet/ plan/ xmlwp.mspx?]. Morrison, M. 2001. HTML and XML for Beginners. Microsoft Press. Morrison, M. 2005. Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours. Sams . Mujahed, A. 2007. Kuwait Municipality, Personal interview, 23 Sept. Swee-Lean, C. & Nga-Na, L. 2004. Prototype Web-Based Construction Project Management System. Journal Construction Engineering and Management 130: 935. Tserng, H. & Lin, P. 2002. An accelerated subcontracting and procuring model for construction projects. Automation in Construction 11(1): 105-125. W3C website. 2007. XML Speci®cation. [available online from: www.w3c.com/xml]. Wikipedia web site-Markup Languages. 2007. [available online from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Markup_language]. Yaowu, W., Jing, Y. & Qiping, S. 2007. The application of electronic commerce and information integration in the construction industry. International Journal of Project Management, 25(2): 158-163. Submitted : 8/11/2009 Revised : 10/5/2010 Accepted : 13/6/2010
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An XML-based budgeting approach for public construction projects: A case study from Kuwait
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